


The Good Side

by emmamay



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: A little angst but mostly fluff, Actor!Eddie, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier In Love, M/M, like extra fluffy fluff and happy boys in love, musician!richie - Freeform, reddie with kids, richie and eddie are big dreamers, the only real warning is the horrendous overuse of italics im sorry, we love maggie tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-25 00:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmamay/pseuds/emmamay
Summary: “Where we goin’, Rich?”“We’re goin’ up into thesuuuunn, baby!”A tale of two little boys destined to shoot up high into the sky, between the sun and moon. Wrapped in glitter, blanketed in stars and high on the good side of life, tucked right by one another’s sides.





	The Good Side

Their star-crossed story begins simply; in Derry, Maine. Two little boys destined to shoot up high into the sky, between the sun and moon. Wrapped in glitter, blanketed in stars and high on the good side of life, tucked right by one another’s sides.

Buzzing, lanky, buck-toothed Richie Tozier and too-little, mousy, mouthy Eddie Kaspbrak. Eight and clutching clammy hands and blabbering all bubbly about how they’d move to Hollywood and star in the big hotshot movies together. 

“S’like Dumb ‘n’ Dumber, that’ll be us, Eddie Spaghetti.” Baby Richie murmured, scratching the back of his ouchy-itchy-prickly knee with the bitten nails of one hand and playing with Eddie’s fingers with the other. Richie was a little comic; wickedly charming and gorgeously hilarious from the minute he could walk and talk, and with a shocking grip on slapstick and wit. He could make Eddie giggle for days. 

Little Eddie’s nose scrunched up, however. He didn’t very much like the sunny, funny stuff. Well, he liked his Richie, but in the movies, he preferred love. “Romeo and Juliet. Some’fin more like that, Chee.” 

Richie sat up a little, blinking behind two coke-bottle- cap lenses, big buggy eyes all doe and aglow and lookin’ pretty at his Eddie. “Who’s who then?” 

Eddie shrugged, licking his cream puff lips, butterfly lashes kissing pinky cheeks. “Well- wait, I d’know, Rich. I don’t really wanna die, ach’ually.” He sulked,  
huffy upon careful consideration. “Maybe let’s jus’ be Woody and Buzz or some people else.” 

Richie cackled as he lay back on the ground, head falling into the scratchy grass and little spots of daisies and back, as it rightfully should be, beside Eddie’s. “M’kay Spaghetti, whatever you say.” His chocolatey eyes close shut, sun flicking off his glasses becoming too bright for his tired little mind. “You’ve gotta friend in me.” Yawning, he squeezed Eddie’s hand with a silent oath of always-Summers, forevermore.

They fell asleep in Richie’s backyard that smushy sweet evening, fingers tangled in childhood promises and foreheads sticky under wildly untamed Summertime bangs and Eddie’s tiny head bumping Richie’s knobbly shoulder every time the bespectacled boy would let out a quiet, crumply, soft little snore. 

Colouring book pages flitted hastily, sans warning, to algebra problems. Sweaty summer armpits became sadly reminiscent of less-hairy times. Dots and spots of acne tittered down backs and adorned necks. But you could trust Richie and Eddie; Woody and Buzz, Dumb and Dumber, _Romeo and Juliet_, to be completely, unabashedly, unfazed by it all. They were gonna become the next big stars of the hot Hollywood horizon. Hand in hand through it all. A few sad, silly math problems and prescribed acne medication didn’t stand a chance against that. Against them.

“Where we goin’, Rich?” A sixteen year old Eddie pondered, hand in Richie’s, head on his shoulder. Knackered sneaker clad feet padded against the hard cement of Derry Town, drip drop of Richie’s strawberry ice-cream cone smacking the pavement.

“We’re goin’ up into the _suuuunn_, baby!” He seemed to soar over the little grass verge leading them into the park, to Eddie anyway. To Eddie, Richie soared and floated and flew _everywhere_ he went. His sunny smile and bushy bright mind and contagious sparkly energy kept him flying high above everything and everyone else in Derry, that’s how Eddie knew he was destined for the stars. He almost thought to tug his hand back down to the ground.

“That we are, my darling.” Eddie hummed, quite content with the sloppy, slobbery kiss planted on his cheek from his strawberry sundae boy. 

Although, literally, at that point they were in fact not headed up into the sun; Eddie knew they were well on their way. As they lay in Bassey Park, on the plush yet prickly grass, Eds’ head on Rich’s chest, the boy below’s feverish digits tangled in and wrangling at the boy above’s blondey-brown curls, Eddie knew. He was transported back to a time eight years ago, in one special boy’s back garden, and he took a blow to the flat, sweaty chest at the memory.

Sure, it was a given his Richie was gonna float and soar and bask in all the giddy glory in between. Gonna have his name in bright flickery bulbs, printed perfectly on Grammy nominee envelopes and scribbled on big late night talk show green room doors. But here, right now, and there, a whole eight years ago, with those big brown bespectacled eyes on him, Eddie knew Richie thought the same of his Eddie, too. And that sentiment meant more to the unbeknownst Mr. Kaspbrak of 1991 than anything or anyone else ever could.

Richie knew, too. Everything unsaid in that one moment, that Autumn evening in Derry’s lousy public park, was rolled up all snug in their forever promise of a star-spangled life by one another’s sides. One so much better than every shitty little lie they’ve known in Derry. Better than the Algebra and uncomfortable growth spurts. Better than a teenage-hood sprinkled in acne and itchy fertiliser spritzed grass biting their still achy limbs. Better than no good, shitty ass, terribly awful Mothers (in Eddie’s case), better than Bowers and Huggins and Hockstetter and Criss. Just _better_.

“Eddie, I love you.” Richie purred into the muggy air, fingertips grazing over forming trickly beads of sweat on Eddie’s forehead and beneath his twirly bangs. Summer was ending, the ambience was hazy. Derry was filled almost to the brim with unknowing adolescents, futures chock-a-block with question marks and furrowed brows. But Richie and Eddie, Eddie and Richie? They knew. It was all only beginning for these two. 

_‘Eddie,’_ Richie said. Sometimes a startling shock to hear rather than one of its familiarly funny sounding synonyms. When Richie called Eddie by his full name (of course not Edward; but neither Eds, and not a mention of Italian food or something about being tiny or mighty or an _ickle baby_) it meant he was speaking of Eddie absolutely _entirely_. He loves and adores and desperately dotes on _every single inch_ of Eddie. Insecurities and personal self-deprecated flaws and all; the tiny smudge of pudge round his belly, baby dimples at the base of his back, knobbly knocked knees. Richie loves his best friend for everything he is, all of him.

“I love _you_, Richie. So bad.” Eddie nuzzled his face into Richie’s underarm, feeling fingers wrap tight around his just lovely smudgy pudgy waist. He planted little kisses onto the boy below’s chest that shot flower petals into his lungs, flying free around his heart. 

Because while Richie was very aware Eddie seemed to believe he could fly, there was no doubt about the fact that Eddie was his very much enabling magic fairy dust. _Eddie_ is what made Richie truly special. And Richie, Eddie, too.

“Baby, what time m’gonna see you tonight?” Sunglasses, a grande latte and a popped white shirt collar spoke to Richie from behind their breakfast bar. Eddie had come in from an audition just as Rich was announcing his departure from their L.A. apartment. 

It was small, the apartment, kinda crampy too. The window in the bathroom with the crackly paint was tired and broken and wouldn’t push past two inches. The old-timey backsplash in the kitchen resembled something from Eddie’s great great Aunt’s creepy-crawly Christmastime cottage, and made his stomach churn when he’d look at it. Their bedroom was bare of curtains, and they didn’t even have enough dough to go and splurge on some good ones to match the purple interior, so old bedsheets it was. And when it got hot? It got _real_ hot. The kinda warmth they each realised reminded them of Summers passed. And didn’t bug ‘em too much after that thought. 

“Hmph,” Richie checked his phone. “‘Bout seven, sugar. Call you before then though.”

Eddie pouted all grumpy and huffy from the kitchenette and Richie swooped over to wipe away a sad sugar puff petted lip. Eddie’s soft freckly arms tangled tight round Richie’s neck as he popped little kisses right there.

“How was the audition?” Richie’s hand carded through Eddie’s hair, hair that he usually had free reign over, but was disallowed from touching this shivery morning in bed as Eddie - or rather, Eddie’s agent - didn’t want it getting all messy and greasy for the aforementioned audition. Richie, only a little jealously, tugged only a _little_ at the caramely locks; he could touch ‘em whenever he wanted. His Eddie. 

“Gotta good feelin’, Chee.” Eddie grinned. Richie tugged him warm into his chest. “Good feelin’ indeed.”

And he was right. Why, Eddie Kaspbrak was very much, absolutely, devastatingly right. That day, while Richie and Eddie of nineteen of course weren’t to realise it, would completely change their apparently set in stone forevermore. 

After Richie shot off to his cosy job at the local radio station - _I’m gettin’ a feel for showbiz, Eds! We’re gunna be all the wiser, jus’ you and your pretty little ass wait._ \- Eddie got the call that flipped their forever and their itty apartment with shitty backsplash and their ice-cream sundae Summers totally upside-down. 

He got the job. And _oooh maaan_ did he get _thee_ job. The part which propelled him up and up and up into the Hollywood haze. A pilot with so much potential and a lead actor _dripping_ in star quality (and just stars, as Richie would say) it was impossible to not become instantly infatuated with. 

“What can you say for Cy’s love life in Season two, Mr Kaspbrak, he gonna find a catch?” A giddy interviewer with shiny teeth and kinda too-blonde blonde hair questioned Eddie on the red carpet at the premiere of his show’s second series just a year and a little bit on. 

Eddie chuckled, tugging at the sleeve of his Saint Laurent suit, biting at his bottom lip. He raised his arms in question, “I d’know! I guess you’re just gonna have to wait and see.” He smiled. A big, bright, happy Eddie smile. He was nervous, sure. But he was buzzing. Richie made the observation as he waited and watched on just as excited at the end of the carpet in his own dashing black tux. 

“And what about yourself, Mr Kaspbrak? In a relationship of your own?” 

If Eddie was beamingly smiley before, he was bordering on having plucked a ray from the actual sun and eaten it by now. His face turned as pink as petunias, raspberry rosewater, strawberry ice-cream; Richie’s favourite colour. “I am indeed.” He mumbled with sweet shaky lips, accompanied by fiddly twiddly fingers below.

“How lovely! They’re here tonight?” 

“Yes, yes he is. My boyfriend, Richie.” Eddie laughed, he felt funny.

Because how funny a word it was, _boyfriend_. Not because Eddie was embarrassed to say it, _not at all_. But because it actually, in fact, was not one which could be found in neither Richie nor Eddie’s vocabulary for a number of years. So still sounded just plain giggly rollin’ off their funny foreign tongues. 

At eight, rolling round all sticky in Richie’s backyard talkin’ ‘bout their shots at the big league, they were best friends.

Twelve, funny frigid hearts and sweaty palms when they’d hug the other, they were still best friends.

Sixteen, playing footsie and scribbling lovey little notes in math class, cuddling in single beds at sleepovers, kissing flushy cheeks and ears and chests; best _best_ friends. 

Eighteen, making out in Richie’s truck, running away from Derry, losing their virginities to one another the first night in their cold, empty apartment, each fuelled and running almost completely on their sheer love for the other? The best friends shitty ol’ Derry had ever seen; and should and would be so sorry to see the backside of. 

‘Cause yeah they were boyfriends, but above all they were _best_ friends. Richie and Eddie, Eddie and Richie. The stars called their names. 

“Eds? Eddie!” Richie cried out, beckoning his baby into their scabby violet varnished bedroom. It was their last night in the shitty itty bitty apartment, headed Beverly Hills’ unexpected way come morning-time, ready to hit ‘em with a sparkly hot two-man meteor shower.

“Chee-baby, wha-“

Eddie stopped short. The apartment was almost bare by now, all that remained in their bedroom the same springy mattress Eddie used his whole childhood, the one they brought here with them. It was dotted in rose petals and surrounded by tiny tea-lights. Richie sat by the mattress with his legs in a basket and a lanky arm reaching out and over to Eddie.

“Rich-“

“Eddie,” Richie murmured, ankles scuffing the hardwood as he shuffled closer to his Eds, holding onto both of his hands as he joined Richie on the ground. 

The scene resembled one of which the same room did just two years ago. Two eighteen year olds, fresh outta Derry, crossed shaky fingers and starry sprinkled eyes in the same bedroom, on the same mattress, laying each other down sweetly, softly, gently. For the very first time.

Richie lay his heart out then and he would too now. He’d do it over and over for Eddie. 

“You’re gonna shoot up high, Eddie-pie.” He smiled, playing with his tiny’s tiny fingers. Eddie’s brow furrowed a bit in adoring confusion. “I’ve always known it, and I’ve always been right behind ya’. Your Rocket Richie soaring with you, my special sparkly shooting star.” 

Eddie started to cry a little, Richie stroking his hands. “No matter where you go, Eddie, I’m gunna be flying right by your side.” He nudged his nose against the smaller boy’s. “The only life I know is doing so, and it’s all I want to do for our forever.” Rich started to back away from Eddie, gingerly untangling their hands, shuffling up onto his knees - _one knee._

Eddie sucked a sharp breath into shaky lungs.

“I knew I was meant to spend the rest of my life right here with you since before I knew literally anything else.” As Eddie almost spontaneously combust in the corner, a little black crushed velvet box emitted Richie’s back pocket in trembling fingers. “I am in sheer, unabashed, undoubtable love with you. You leave me in a state of constant moonstruck, my special twinkly star. Let’s shine on forever, what d’ya say, Eds? Marry me?” 

His eyes were all chocolate and glassy and hopeful and so eight year old Richie, Eddie wanted to scream. Nothing has changed, nothing ever will, not between them. Eddie _knew_. So why was it so hard?

“_Richie,_” He frowned, choking on a terribly strangled sob, head tilting to fully meet Richie’s now faltering gaze. “Rich, we’ve got so much coming up,”  
He took Richie’s face into his hands, clammy pads of his thumbs stroking at and rubbing out the sorrowful little lines etch-a-sketch-ing their way onto his wobbly face. 

“What?” Richie collapsed from his eclipse-like high into a crumbly crater on the dark side of the moon. Helpless and hopeless and horribly forlorn. He ogled up at Eddie as though he were a whole planet away; too far, hard to read, difficult to grasp.

“I’m sorry.” Eddie crackled, sobbed, fell onto his knees as he scrambled for his home in Richie’s chest, hands clutching at his terrible punny T-shirt. “We just can’t be sure of anything, Chee. Everything’s all scary topsy-turvy and I’ve got my movie and you’re gonna start recording and-“

“Fuck it if I’m sure of one thing, Eddie Kaspbrak. I’m sure I’m in love with you.” The room was suddenly blue, the melancholic drop of a box and two broken hearts shattering through space and time and wronging every right there ever was. 

Richie stood, Eddie shaking feverishly on the ground by his feet, nails scratching and the floor and at his socks and bottoms of his jeans, begging. “Please, Chee.” He racked with cries, big eyes filled up full with pools of gloom. “I love you so much, Chee, I do. I do, I do, I _do!_”

Richie snagged his legs away, staring down at the fallen star. He could see himself at the alter, two rings in his palm. Eddie nowhere to be seen. 

“But you don’t.”

In the morning, Eddie went to Beverly Hills. Richie did not. They were twenty-five minutes, but an outer space away. 

The problem was not their age, or any question behind their undying love, but the uncertainty of their situation. Eddie was just _scared_. But fuck, Richie was scared too, Richie was terrified. They’d been living in a ratty flat for two years and suddenly moving out to Hollywood’s poncy neighbour, mingling with the big-shots, all riding on the fact that Eddie just got lucky. His show was a hit. Richie was waiting on his hit. He’d play his songs on his radio show (much to his boss’ frustration) and at stupid stinky bars on sad Saturday nights and wait around on his big break like Eddie.

But Eddie was signed for an upcoming, incoming star-show of a movie, and Richie was in the process of actually, officially being signed by a record label and, and, and it was all too much. Getting married would be ten thousand steps _too much_. The fear of the unknown, where they were gonna go, that wrecked Eddie, he couldn’t cope with it. 

He just didn’t listen to Richie when he said he’d fly anywhere with him.

“Ed! Peaches or mangos?” Verity called from across the fruit garden, splotches of raspberry on her sun-kissed cheeks.

“I’m fine, Ver, honestly. Thank you.” Eddie smiled as his manager tittered back through the trees, nodding along pleasantly and brushing her hand through the greenery. 

Eddie Kaspbrak bathed in the Tuscany heat by an old stone pool in some artist’s Italian cottage, on the set of his brand new movie. His fourth. 

He was reading some novella to pass the time between filming his own takes, slacks rolled up and feet dipped in the cool blue splishy sploshy water below. There were pokey little fishies swimming a mismatched stream, bashing and splashing into one another. “I feel ya,” Eddie murmured.

Eddie had been living in Florence these last three months, filming and exploring and experiencing. He was twenty-five years old and had been confined to Shitsville, Maine for eighteen whole sorry years of that life, so really thought he owed himself the vacation (working or not).

His ragged travel notebook was filling up these days, all the places he’d been by now. Cannes, Sâo Paulo, Bali, The Isle of Skye, the list even keeps going a little longer. His job enabled him to do so much, escape round the little potholes and secret special corners of the world. But he still felt lost. In his heart. Perhaps the worst location to feel such a dread. When he got lost in Paris, he called Verity, and when they both found themselves in a small trauma on one particularly samey Irish beach, they held a trusty OS map. There were no maps to hearts. Especially ones with little pieces torn out and missing and scattered all about and lying around on bedroom floors of Los Angeles apartments. 

He’d see an unearthly fluffy puppy, warm Summer sunset, ice-cream van selling special strawberry sundaes or a tattered pair of Cons and that same hurting heart would tug at its tired strings to pick up the phone, _give him a call._ He would ache at night with flashing images of chocolate eyes and scruffy curls and big hands and an even bigger, bashing, _beating_ heart. 

“Ver, you in love?” He passed in settled conversation to his manager who had sat across the pond from him. Eddie knew Verity, very well actually, but he tried not to gnaw into her private life too much. If she wanted to, she’d tell him. The question did seem to startle her, however, as she stared across at him with wide eyes, swimming in confusion.

“Not right now, I don’t think, Ed.” She stared down at a dinky silver bracelet on her tanning wrist, eyes definitely far away from where they were. “Why, are you?” She splashed back to real-time, foot nudging Eddie’s from under the water. She knew about Richie, he told her before. He told her all the time. She’d know.

“Yeah.” He breathed. “I think, still, yeah.”

“Goodnight, sweet Los Angeles. Your Rich ‘Records’ Tozier’s _siiiignin’_ off.” The man himself gave a wholehearted salut to his _visual_ audience of absolutely zilch, spinning around hastily in his fancy office chair and plopping his beloved red Beats down on the desk, laptop slammed shut. 

“Good show, Rich.” Barry - Butter Barry, as Richie called him (not to his face) - muttered with a toothy smile as he passed him in the corridor on his way out. He gave him a little pat on the back and Richie felt a little lighter before actually feeling tremendously _bad_ for referring to him as a big chunka fatty butter for like seven years now. _Give ‘im a new name tomorra’._ He thought. But maybe not, maybe it meant soft like butter.

Definitely unlike the butter in Rich’s house. “Shit on it!” He gargled, a little too strangled to just be the result of a butter-related fall-down. 

Seriously, though, the man just wanted some good toast. And the butter in the fridge looked as though a family of ants had called refuge there. But who was he to judge, the sad dumb giant. He threw the tub to the trashcan and groaned when the tediously incessant ring of his phone interrupted his follow-up search of the refrigerator, this time to find cold meat.

“Mom, hello?” He answered groggily, having hadn’t properly spoken since he’d left the station an hour ago. He cleared his throat.

“Richie! How are you sweetheart?” She all but squealed, Rich couldn’t help but grin though, he couldn’t remember the last time anyone was this excited to hear from him.

“I’m fine, just fine.” He pondered his answer for a little, because was he fine? He wasn’t very sure. But he was hanging on, and he was - upon further inspection - the proud and hungry owner of some in-date cold meat, so not _everything_ had turned to shit. 

“Good baby, I’m glad.” He winced only a little at the name, head falling onto his shoulder to balance the phone there as he made quick work at a ham sandwich (sans butter of course, but hopefully still on the same wavelength as edibleness).

“Listen, your father and I are missing you more than ever, not seen you since Christmas!” As Maggie Tozier began her pleading, Richie reasoned. God, it actually had been that long. He hadn’t went back to Derry for his birthday, nor did he invite his parents to L.A. for the monumentally uneventful day. Hadn’t seen ‘em for either of their birthdays either, just send a Moonpig card and a radio shoutout their way and was done with it. 

“Please come up for thanksgiving, darling.” Mags spoke gently, but Richie could hear her tone laced and etched carefully in something else, something a little dreadful, not just an invitation of stuffed turkey and a weekend full of fat old Aunts. “I’m worried about you.”

Ah. There it was. 

Richie rolled his eyes, stilling the bread knife and taking ahold of his cell. “Mom, seriously?” He wiped one breadcrummy palm against the front of his jeans and poignantly tightened the other. “I am fine. Totally fine. I’ll see you Thanksgiving, okay? Love you, night, bye.” 

He did what he always did, pushed ‘em away. Richie Tozier didn’t want the sadly strung banners of anyone’s halfheartedly thrown pity party. He didn’t want the apologetic tones and worried glances and annoying, supposedly assuring forearm squeezes. Nor the quiet, cold apartment enveloping him in the overbearingly felling feeling of _alone_. Not the sad single sandwiches, or the anty butter, not any of it. 

He wanted soft hands and kind eyes and a gentle shaky breath of a blanket of love he once knew. He wanted to be able to go to the movies on his solemn Sundays without seeing posters and printouts and trailers of _his_ face. Wanted to be able to say that _he, Richie Tozier,_ made it too. Didn’t just give up, didn’t throw away a record deal and his dignity at the ripe old age of twenty for a sob-story of failed love. 

He wanted so many things, so much that he had lost, now floating away in between exploding stars and unnamed planets, in the no man’s land of life and love.

“Any requests?” 

Verity slid into the seat right by him in the taxi outta Tuscany. They were on their way to Pisa Airport, nibbling on chips and apple slices and staring at an Uber driver with his hand on the radio valve.

Ver eyed Eddie who just shrugged nonchalantly, not minding. “Got anything American?” She asked the man.

“Sure, got it all on my phone!” He spoke with a happy Italian swagger, hands flying around suddenly to grapple at the cell. “Where you from, whadda ya’ want?”

“Los Angeles, if you’ve got it, please Sir!” Verity giggled all sugary at his sweet enthusiasm, Eddie joining in as his sunglasses flopped a stringy curl in front of his eyes, the breeze blowing into the open window throwing it around all doozy in the wind. 

Static sounded loudly for a short while, Ed and Ver scrunching their faces up a notch, but smiles never faltering. Soon enough the faint murmur of a man’s voice could be made out. The driver cranked the switch up and began to drive.

_”Mornin’, sunshiney Los Angeles! It’s 8am on a bright-eyed bushy-tailed kinda Monday morn’ ‘n’ you’re listenin’ to none otha than Rich ‘Records’ Tozier, here.”_

Eddie’s heart fell out of his ass. Shaky hands pawed at his sweater sleeves to pull ‘em over his fingers as he chewed on his bottom lip and trembled with such fever to the sound of a distant melody he once called home it was a sheer _wonder_ no one noticed.

_“Gunna play you somethin’ to wake you up this morning, ‘cuz I know I need it.”_ His voice was crackly but it was his. It was Eddie’s Richie. It was him. 

R.E.M.’s ‘Shiny Happy People’ rung out through the cab, driver setting his window down and letting out a _“Woo, I love this’a’song!”_

Richie did too, was his favourite. _Makes me feel like driving down a long ass Cali road, Spaghetti. One day, one day._

Eddie wondered if Richie got to live out his shiny happy dream. He ogled out the window at the passing town of Florence, his mind already flown out far away from Italy. Richie was still in L.A.? Richie was still spinning records at their once local station? Got his own show by the sounds of things, good for him, but where was his album? Where were his Grammys? The late night talk show interviews? Name in lights? If Eddie got The Good Side (and that’s if he could truly call it that) why the hell didn’t Richie?

Maybe ‘Everybody Hurts’ would have been more fitting.

_“Heading back’ta good ol’ Derry, Maine this afternoon, people! So I’m afraid to announce Rockin’ Richie’s departure for a few days. My good friend Barry’s gonna take over, though, and trust me, man’s gotta voice like butter, you ain’t gon’ be missin’ me!”_

Eddie gulped. _Derry_. Derry they ran away from. No good, shitty ass, terribly awful mothers in Derry. Bullies in Derry. Why the fuck was he going back there? And who the hell was this buttery Barry?

None of Eddie’s business. That’s who.

_”Y’see it’s Thanksgiving ‘n’ all and I won’t lie to ya’, L.A, I’m stuck in a bit of a rut. So I thought what the hell? I’ll go spend time with the family, try’ta cool down, y’know? Anyway, catch ya on the flip s-!”_

Richie’s voice cut off statically sharp. Eddie’s gaze shot outside. Pisa. Airport. _Shit._

He looked to a now seemingly worried Verity, with twiddly sunglasses in one hand and her pretty pink carry-on in the other. “Eddie, are you o-“

“I need to get on a plane to Maine.” 

“Wha-”

“Maine, Ver. Bangor Aiport, _please_.” He pleaded, baby soft hands scared and shaky and clenching and cracking in on themselves.

“Eddie, what are you- Wait, is that not where the radio guy is going? I’m so confused!” 

“Radio guy is Richie. _My Richie._” His eyes welled up and up and _oh fucking great. Just start crying, stupid baby._

“Holy shit,” Verity slammed the Uber door, wiped Eddie’s eyes, quick wave and blow of a kiss to sweet Italian taxi-man and not a spring but a _sprint_ in her step. “Let’s fucking get you to Maine.” 

Eddie and Richie were always good at it. Talking about their feelings. Richie would insist this was because he was _such_ an empath, had so much _passion_ for _feeling_ things. 

And he loved Eddie. That made it easy. 

If you asked Eddie, he’d have said it was because he was so in touch with his own emotions and their reasonings. The purpose behind them, the whys an hows and all the goop in between. He had no problem communicating it. 

And he loved Richie. That made it _inexplicably_ easy. 

He didn’t even have to ponder over the purpose of that feeling, that _fact_. It was real, it had always been there. He just _knew_. In his bones, he’d say. And coursing through his blood. 

Maggie Tozier _just knew_, too. Got a special instinct, so she does. Can tell when the pasta’s about to burn just from the change in steam. Knows when Went’s twiddling with his bushy ‘tache and staring at the spot above the T.V. that it means he’s got a particularly big op to perform in the morning and needs his shoulders rubbed down a little. She knows what to say and how to say it; even in the trickiest, fiddliest situations, and is acutely aware of how any single person is feeling in the moments that count, just by the crinkles of untold anecdotes and secret feelings in and by their eyes.

So when she sees her little boy trudging up the path with a tired, tired gaze that is far, far away from Derry, she knows. 

“Oh, Richie,” He crumpled in her arms, Momma’s little boy. She was worried before; she felt it in his voice, his melancholy. Sad even through the telephone static. Sounded like her own on his first day of school, or when he and Eddie moved out to sunny L.A. with nothing but two suitcases fulla hope and hearts fulla love.

He’s just _sad_. Sometimes there’s no other word to describe it. Upset, devastated, crestfallen. Sad. And down. Down, but not out.

It was past seven o’clock in the shadowy November evening by the time Eddie Kaspbrak came on ‘round. Richie had been home for two hours and a little bit, trundled into the kitchen and spoon fed Momma’s chicken pie and lots of little uttered love-notes of assurance and adoration and promises of hopeful futures. 

Maggie swept him up hastily yet carefully in her lovely comfy knitted arms because, my goodness, was little Eddie Kaspbrak very sad too. 

“Hello, Ted.” She murmured. And the little teddy crumbled. 

Maggie had always called him ‘Ted’, something so special and intimately Mother-In-Law-y it always made Eddie feel floaty. To have someone like that. In a place that always felt more like a home. Now it felt like the core of the Earth. At the centre of everything, but burning hot. Sore to touch. Difficult to reach.

She kissed his hair, brushed his shoulders and removed his fluffy coat. Rubbed under his puffy eyes and whispered, “I know it doesn’t feel it, but everything will be just fine.” 

And when she brought him out into the kitchen - still shacked up in her steely-strong arms, bountiful with love - for the first time in five years, Eddie thought; _yeah, okay, maybe everything just might be just fine._

Richie was _tired_. His eyes and cheeks and arms were droopy. His fingers rapped against the dining table while nervously chewy teeth gnawed raw at bitten, broken lips. His legs were tucked in a basket in the chair, folded up all small, too little for his Richie. His big, shining force, right? Always. 

But maybe not. Maybe not anymore.

Maybe Eddie had missed too much. He really wasn’t Eddie’s Richie anymore. Hadn’t been for a long while. The thought struck a scaredy-cat-shaky sucker punch to Eddie’s sad, tender gut. 

Richie fell off his chair, a little. His ankles slipped from beneath him, the curtain blew, skittishly, from the open porch backdoors, sudden light partially blinding him. He blinked, hard, twice.

And holy moly, he was eight all over again. And _the sun_, the sun was shining solely, wholeheartedly, one-hundred-percent-ly for one precious Eddie Kaspbrak. 

“Hey, Eds.”

It came out all croaky, they both heard it. Richie’s blushy cough to mask the hurt meddled with Eddie’s harsh swallow of the big teary lump in his throat. He rung his fingers together. His heart, his lungs and his bones clenched and cried and sobbed and wept at the foreign familiarity of it all. 

“Hey, Rich.” 

It was weepy and wobbly. He watched Richie’s face writhe in contortion. Bushy eyebrows and pillowy lips fell through summertime freckles. A frown so devastating, so terminal, it super-shocked its way through the Tozier’s dining room destructively and cataclysmically. His lips parted and begged to say something, to speak any lived tale of forlorn misery from the last five years, to tell him how he felt. 

Eddie watched him dolefully, dutifully. He choked on sparkly tears and scrunched his little stuffy nose and then sobbed, hushed (but heard), once.

Richie and Eddie were always good at it. Talking about their feelings. Why did it have to be so hard now?

Maybe with Momma Mags as a middle-ground-standing referee they could have communicated through her. Five years was a long time. Perhaps they had lost their touch. But Maggie Tozier was long gone, off into the living room to rub her husband’s shoulders and sip on some sugary tea and give two forsaken hearts some private time to heal. 

Eddie moved gingerly, and Richie hated it. His hands were clenched but soft and eyes trained on the floor yet skittish and he was holding a breath that might he let it out, would completely blow his courage away. Richie slid off his seat hastily as the smaller man slowly stepped toward him, skidding his own way over. Meeting him in the middle.

It was a moment from the movies. Slow motion. Gentle, sacred, _scared_. Richie and Eddie, Eddie and Richie, at the centre of everything. Stars imploded around them. Quiet, creaky cracks of milky, creamy hearts. Lights flashing then banishing. Galaxies folded in on themselves, announcing the pivotally fatal rejoining, recommencing, of their two forgotten, foreign, Stars. The solar system _caterwauled_, as Eddie fell into Richie.

They held onto one another for hours. Searching, scratching, yearning. Eddie wept and swept his hands all over Richie’s face, time and time again, remembering and revelling and relishing in the past and that there, in the present, he was once again able to do so. Richie maintained a steady two-handed grip on different parts of Eddie. His hips, shoulders, cheeks, waist. As though letting him go would mean for him to fly away, again. Richie was never going to chance it. 

“How are you two boys?” Maggie asked as she tiptoed her quiet way into the kitchen, tick-tock-tick-tocks of the clock and shooting stars later. The tap ran for one, two, three seconds as she filled a glass of water. Then one, two, three more. Another. They were sat firmly in front of the pair, on the dining table, little dribbles and trickles running down the side onto the cloth. 

Eddie was entangled in Richie’s gangly limbs, sat in his lap, cheek pressed to his pretty beating heart, face only half on show to Maggie. He breathed out. Richie tucked some hair behind his ear.

“Getting to know one another again.” He said.

Maggie kissed his head, then Eddie’s, then ruffled her warm balmy hands through each of their messy hairs, excusing herself with a gently uttered wish of a goodnight, and many a sweet dream. 

Richie’s head fell into rest in the tuggy, puffy bush of Eddie’s milky chocolate locks, breathing in languidly. His soft, long fingers rubbed up and down the other’s tanned sides tenderly, big feet beating a little drum against his toes. His arms could fully wrap around him, and then some. His legs stayed in a mangled mess with his, too. 

He’s everywhere. He’s the sun. Biggest, brightest star. He’s everywhere. 

There was a whole lot more to say. Discuss. Forgive. Forget? But for now, for tonight, they just breathed. Out and in. One another. Broken little meteors pieced themselves back together, slowly but surely; with exceedingly calmer hands owning gentle grips and strips of rickety kisses along supple skin and hushed but fixed promises, _oaths_, of apologies and longing and aching and always and forevers. 

Things got better. 

“Richie! Richie Tozier!” Bushy tailed, bright eyed interviewers lined the velvety carpet, mics in hand, clips in hair and smiling chunky crystalline toothy grins. Richie almost _gagged_ with excitement.

“Hello Mr Tozier, I’m Emily. How are you feeling tonight?” One stopped him.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet, in his fancy ass dress shoes, he shook her hand exuberantly. “Hello Emily, lovely to meet you. I am serendipitously, ecstatically excited. How are you?”

She laughed, _cackled_ really. Taken aback by his bountiful energy. “I’m great, thank you! You’re nominated for a biggy, you nervous?” 

Nervous? He was fucking relieved, thank you, Emily. He was letting out a twenty-nine year long breath from the darkest, sharpest, blue depths of his lungs, sailing high on the sea of dreamy, elated bliss. Nervous? He was up for a _Grammy_. For Album of the Motherfucking Year (one world self-added). He was shitting his pants, Emily! His designer pants! In the best way possible! 

“Honestly, I’m just so happy, and honoured, and everything in-between,” Because the in-between was a whole black hole, too intricate to even begin to explain. “I went from spinnin’ records at my local station for seven ‘n’ a half years, living in a ratty ass apartment, all brokenhearted and inspiredly repressed to now finally reaching this point. I’m stoked to be here. Gimme a badge for participation and I’ll take that!”

Emily smiled, truly, her eyes almost prideful, and turned to Richie’s side. To the man tucked away right there. “Mr Kaspbrak, you must be so proud,”

Eddie grinned all cheekily and gorgeously as usual. “Actually, it’s Mr Tozier, too.” Richie nipped his pinky coloured ear with his sweet puffy froggy lips like they were eight again, and chuckled right against it.

“My apologies, Mr Tozier.” Emily beamed, staring between the two lovesick puppies before her a little bashfully, as though intruding. “The two of you are a real credit to one another, I mean, what a pair you make.”

Richie burrowed his head into Eddie’s as he spoke. “Thank you. I am so proud of Rich, I can’t even explain. The stars have been calling his name since we were two little boys in short-shorts stuck in Maine. Now it’s up in lights like it’s always been in my mind and I always knew it would be. And he’s up there dancing in the stars, singing songs about me,” He giggled, all high and giddy and moonstruck, one hand squeezing onto Richie’s and the other crossing his face and reaching up to stroke sweetly and softly at Richie’s flushy cheek. “Rich works so hard. His whole heart is filled to the brim with effortless, passionate love for everything and everyone in his life. No one deserves it like my baby.” 

Richie thought he might cry, and that this Emily lady over here just might too. He dug his whole face into Eddie’s hair and laughed, jolly and bright and loving, pressing secret kisses to the back of his scalp. 

Eddie grabbed his hands and kissed them both, prying Richie’s body back to face the world. It was his night, after all, Eddie wanted all the lights on him. 

“Congratulations, Mr and Mr Tozier. On everything. I’m obsessed with you guys.” She laughed. “And a massive good luck tonight, Richie.”

“Thank you.”

Thank you Emily. Thank you Grammys. Thanks Mom, and Dad too. Thanks Butter Barry and the Rich ‘Records’ Tozier show. Thanks Bowers and the bullies that beat him till he almost crumbled. Almost. Thanks family, and friends. Thanks to the believers, the dreamers, like him. The fans. 

And to his best friend. Love of his life and king of his heart. Dumb to his Dumber, Woody to his Buzz, always _dashing_ Romeo to his forever _hopeless_ Juliet. Star-crossed lover for life.

Dear god, _thank you_, Eddie Tozier. 

“Mmm, mornin’, Chee.” A sleepy Sunday Eddie shuffled through to the breakfast bar in fluffy navy slippers and a matching robe. Rich slid him a cup of creamy milky coffee and served him up a sweet kiss to the freckly forehead.

“Mornin’, baby.” He hoisted the littler man up in his strong, warm arms, straight into his lap. Eddie giggled all lowly and lovely and late-morning-y and scooted as far back flush into his husband as possible. 

The sun flitted dreamily through the blinds of the kitchen windows, sparkling ever reverently for one Eddie Tozier, caught in his chocolatey golden eyes and the wispy ends of his baby brown curls. He sipped at his coffee and the sun shone for him. Forever.

Richie’s mighty firm, ever lanky, delectably graceful limbs cooped his Eddie right up. Arms wrapped round and round his waist with hands rubbing and touching and loving everywhere they could, legs hanging lazily from the stool and thighs clutching Eddie close. His bare feet brushed the ground as an August breeze flew calmly through the backdoors of their pretty Cali beach-house, left open where Richie had let out the dogs, and Richie kissed Eddie’s neck. Pepper barked soundly at Lulu, who rolled around in the dewy grass. 

“I’m not cleaning her ass before she comes back in here.” Eddie spoke into his now empty mug. Well, empty for Eddie. He always left a little smidgen of a sliver at the bottom, never fully finished the cup. Richie squeezed at his sides, pressed his squishy lips to the back of his head, and laughed loud right there. Followed him like a little puppy himself over to the sink. Would follow him everywhere. 

“What’s the plan for today?” Eddie swivelled round in Richie’s arms, leaning back into the counter. 

Richie’s stood over him, body around him, touched his temple. Smiled gently and kindly and sparkly and oh, so full of Tozier charm it was literally dripping off of him, falling all around them on the kitchen floor. “We goin’ on that drive?” 

Eddie’s eyes lit up. Fervently nodding, he grabbed Richie’s face to kiss his peachy plump lips, fingers tangling in his messy mop of hair. Richie’s big hands fell to the base of Eddie’s back, splayed themselves out, rubbed up and down and down and up and his lips fell to his neck.

Eddie moaned and murmured. “Have we got a little time to spare bef-“

“Daddy!”

Eddie groaned, low and guttural. Kids were the second largest cock-block known to man. Only after Richie Tozier’s infamously insufferable Your Mom jokes. But both self-induced. They couldn’t complain. They never would. He pushed Richie away gently, with a sigh. “Come on, Daddy. Duty calls.”

“_Ooohh_, Eds! Kinky! Not with the children around.” Richie’s eyebrows wiggled as tiny tootsy footsteps rained on the ceiling above them and Eddie slapped his chest. 

“_Eugh_, Rich, gross!”

They head upstairs hand in hand to investigate a certain sweet trio of Toziers, poking and playing and prodding around in Daddies’ room. 

“Hey, goobers! Whadda ya’ think you’re doing sneakin’ around in here?!” Richie swept their youngest, little Juni, up above the fluffy clouds of pillows on their King sized mattress of fairytale dreams. (_Oh yeah, every night with Eds in there is somethin’ from a fairytale_, Rich would say.) 

Juni was four, and giggling _crazy_, a sweet symphony very similar to that of a little Eddie Kaspbrak. He had his Daddy’s creamy tan and shimmery eyes too. And his bite. _Ohhh_, you betcha. Tiniest of the bunch, sure, but he was always ready to stand his mighty ground. He squirmed around in his father’s hold as teeny birdie kisses were pecked all over his precious head.

Eddie watched on adoringly, mindlessly braiding Summer’s hair in his twiddly fingers. Ten. Sure to be the CEO of _something_, somewhere, someday. Or the President. Whatever is was, wherever life took her, Rich and Eds rested assured in the presumable knowledge that one day, they’d be content inhabitants of a rockin’ carehome, when that time came. Summer Tozier was all pursed lips and business with kind eyes and gentle smiles. She slept with like twelve teddy bears and still called them both Daddy and was quite possibly the best big sister ever. 

Richie could see her at six, stood behind Eddie and copy-cat-ing him with her arms crossed in their fall-leave-swarmed backyard of that Autumn.

_“You boys take off those mucky shoes before you come back in here!”_ Eddie had said, smiling at Richie and a sweet toddling Ollie.

_“Yeah, take off your shoes!”_ She grabbed her Daddy’s hand and trailed back off inside. She hasn’t let go since.

Richie thanked the stars everyday that their babies got all the best bits of Eddie. 

Although looking at Oliver, he was beamingly proud to say something good, something completely _angelic_, was quite a lot of him, too. At least aesthetically. 

Eddie called Ollie ‘Poprocket’ and said he was all soft round the edges and buzzing through to the core like little Richie. And Richie, still, now. Passionate about _everything._ He was all big brown deer-like eyes and treacle curls yet Richie, modest as ever, forever swore he had Eddie’s famous nose crinkle. Seven years old and could play just about anything on the guitar, _if ya ask nicely, sweetheart. (Insert classically charming Tozier wink)._ He was Richie’s son alright. 

Richie’d say they’re all Eddie. Eddie’d say they’re Rich. But truly, they were the best little squishy squashed up bunch of both of ‘em. Summer days and trickly strawberry ice cream cones and love and pride and shooting star wishing dreams. Nose crinkle crumples and bone-crushing hugs and playing with the dogs and kissing each other’s noses goodbye. 

“What did Daddy get this one for, again?” Oliver pondered, still snooping around at the awards on their dresser. Richie brushed him up from the spot so he clambered into his arms, opposite Juni. 

“For being the sexiest superstar alive!” He rustled and rummaged the boys around in his grip and was met with a room full of giggly disapproval.

“Ew!” Ollie squealed.

“Gross!” Summer’s face squished up just like her Daddy’s behind her. His hands on her shoulders as they both gazed at Richie like some denouncing twinning angels and Eddie rolled his eyes. Richie threw his head back with a laugh, and chucked the boys on the fluffy cloudy bed, ticklin’ their tummies crazy.

“It’s Daddy’s Oscar for Leading Actor.” Summer beamed, turning on her heel to face Eddie and squeeze him in a cuddle. “And beside it, Daddy’s Grammy for New Artist.” She read from her place tucked in her father’s arms, smiling all fond and proud, the little madam. “His first one.” 

She tugged on Eddie’s hand and yanked him over to the bed with the boys. “And then _aaaalll_ the others. The list goes on.” She melodramas, hand flush against her forehead, making Eddie snicker wildly. And Richie says she’s all him. Sure.

They all roll around for a while, tickling and giggling and reprimanding - hilariously and accordingly, and usually from either Eddie or Summer - and enjoy one another’s crazy Tozier company. Until the boys start wrestling and Summer announces she’s _dreadfully outnumbered in this house!_ and heads off downstairs to round up the pups for their drive. (Not before cursing Lulu’s mucky paws.)

On the road, Richie sends the windows flying down. The wind is lapping and racking through the car and three little starlets are guffawing in the back. 

R.E.M.’s ‘Shiny Happy People’ plays as Eddie grabs Richie’s free hand and crushes it with all his love and all his might.

The sky opens up. The sun, biggest, brightest star. Shining for Eddie. Shining for Richie. Shining for the past and the present and the future and the faithful, fateful journey in-between.

“Where we goin’, Daddy?” A little wish-washed, dream-dunked pixie in the back asks. Sprinkly stars shining in his eyes, looking up at the clouds.

“Up into the sun.”

**Author's Note:**

> i began writing this on the plane journey home from my family holiday in july of this year. the sun was setting and i was in the midst of it all and in that moment i really felt that anything was possible. (mental note: i want to feel like that all the time). anyhow, it’s taken me a whileee to hammer this out because anything i wrote i craved to change as to be perfect for these special boys. im pretty okay with how it turned out and hope you enjoyed it with your heart, pleeease leave me a comment to let me know! thank you for reading, emmamay. <3


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